Art, accounting and technology: unravelling the paradoxical “in-between”

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide a critical reflection on how ongoing revolutionary technological changes can extend the possibilities of accounting into artistic spaces. In addition, arts ability to protest, challenge, open and inspire may be instrumental to humanise technological advances transforming the accounting profession. Design/methodology/approach This paper draws upon the methodological, theoretical and empirical literature of accounting, technology and art and outlines a research and professional agenda for developing the role of art in the context of accounting and technology. Findings The authors unravel and navigate the paradoxical “in-between” of art, accounting and technology. It emerges that the transformative power of new technologies lies not only in the technologies themselves but also in their ability to extend the possibilities of accounting into the artistic spaces of visualisation, curation performance and disruption. New technologies, combined with artistic spaces, present a unique ability to open up the latent disruptive potential of accounting itself, pushing accounting in new directions towards more humanistic models of multiple narratives. Originality/value The insights of this paper are relevant to open professional and scholarly dialogue that relates accounting, art and technologies during a significant period of disruptive and transformative technological changes. This paper provides new understandings of how art through visualisation, curation, performance and disruption can force accounting researchers and practitioners to challenge the traditionally held views of accounting, opening us towards more futuristic models of accountability.